Why sporting gaffes are no laughing matter

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THE recent decision of a Tory MP to risk a cockle-picking joke on an after-dinner audience gave rise to an intricate debate last week about the boundaries of humour. And the restless shadow of that debate couldn’t help but fall over the new series of You’ve Been Framed!, the camcorder prat-fall-fest that launched on Saturday with an inevitable “sports special”.

In particular, one worried about the producers’ wisdom in including a scene in which someone ended up getting run over by their own quad bike — a scene, one could argue, that would have been of minimal amusement to the